Review: The World's Fastest Hamlet by Austin Shakespeare
by Michael Meigs

Sometimes you master the venue and other times the venue masters you. 

We went to downtown Austin on the afternoon of the First Night celebrations, particularly to check out the theatre events. The World's Fastest Hamlet by Austin Shakespeare and Heron & Crane by the DA! Theatre Collective were advertised for the HBMG Foundation stage in the park just under the south end of the First Street Bridge. 

Except that there was no stage there. HBMG certainly must have encouraged and subsidized the schedule of events for that locale, but the participants were left to define a playing space as best they could. 


That didn’t much bother the Capoeira group, who set up their drums and percussion on the sidewalk and spent a cheery, thumping half-hour or so demonstrating that graceful, dance-like martial art from Brazil. They gathered a good crowd. Some folks watched from the bridge railings, above, and others stood or sat on the curbside. 

The second spot, at 3:30, was reserved for Austin Shakespeare’s World’s Fastest Hamlet. They had chosen to set up beneath the bridge itself, using the road as the playing space and encouraging spectators to seat themselves next to it.

They had done their homework – not only did they plant a thicket of microphones, but they had also secured professional stage lighting up under the girders of the bridge.

A glib and cheery Master of Ceremonies took the microphone as soon as the Capoeira group finished. Many of the spectators attracted to the martial arts display good naturedly strolled the 20 or 30 feet over to the performance space. Quite a few of us plopped our rears down in the fine dirt next to the street, and others gathered on the incline beneath the bridge. 

Hamlet done in fifteen minutes can be played only as wild street farce, particularly since the company consisted of only four players for all parts. Director Beth Burns discharged them at the august edifice of the play like a load of Silly Putty, and they were all over the place.

 

(Left to right: Gwen Kelso animating the ghost and playing female parts, Ted Meredith as Shakespeare and others, Justin Scalise as Hamlet, and Robert Deike as Horatio, Polonius and Laertes).

This was a very silly and very funny version of Hamlet, played at maximum volume and picked up very well by the sound system. The theatrical lighting dispelled the shadows normally lurking under the bridge in mid-afternoon. The show occurred relatively early in the First Night program, so there was little noise from other activities in the parks.

It was all clowning, made even more funny because the players were quoting verbatim from Shakespeare’s revered text. Justin Scalise put no darkness in this Hamlet; he was as animated and silly as a Road Runner cartoon.

Some of my favorite moments

The opening scene, with guards on the ramparts:

 

 

 

Hamlet confronts mom Gertrude in her chambers:

 

 

Claudius decides that Hamlet must to England after the killing of Polonius: 

 

And of course, the finale: 

 

 

 

Once they’d finished, to cheers from the audience, our players over-topped themselves by doing a two-minute Hamlet, followed by a ten-second Hamlet.   

Justin Scalise is without doubt a Shakespeare buff. He recently played a fine Feste the clown in Twelfth Night at the Scottish Rite Theatre, and he delivered some more fractured Shakespeare at Frontera Fest (he plays Hamlet in the “O Feel Ya!” parody, available on YouTube). And the narrowsheet passed out at this show promises “for those interested in more Hamlet, there will be a fall production featuring some of Austin’s finest actors. For information, inquire a jscalise@hotmail.com.”

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The World's Fastest Hamlet
by William Shakespeare, adapted by Austin Shakespeare
Austin Shakespeare